Comfy While Wet

I was given the day off today since I work at a loop location restaurant and it would surely be slow. It was cool with me since I always have plenty to do outside of work. I dropped Jasmine off at work and headed for the gym. I decided to get in some much needed swim practice, and sure enough, the place was dead. Perfect! I started with some basic drills with fins, and also this time I had my goggles, earplugs, and nose clip, so I must have looked funny, but all in all it worked out better for me. The drill that I found helped me the most was a simple breathing drill. I grabbed onto the edge of the pool with my arms outstretched while still standing up, and I just practiced exhaling into the water while looking at the bottom of the pool and my head in neutral spine position, and rotated my upper body to bring my mouth out to take a breath. I did it for a while, and found a comfortable cadence and also got used to the feeling of pushing air out underwater. I worked to relax, and this helped me when I started doing the actual swimming because I was able to relax, slow down, and move through the water smoothly. Hey--swimming is fun when you're not panicking! Lol!

All in all, I made much more progress today from the last time, but I must keep practicing to improve, and if any of you are struggling with swimming, just work to get comfortable first and go from there. You may want to pick up swim classes at a gym or with a team, especially if training. I am "my own coach" for now and I have been using some great instructional books for technique. If you want to learn more about those, please contact me. Last thing is this--if you are training to swim in open water, you've got to get to the beach! My neighbor and friend Jeannine has been reminding me of this, and I plan to get out there soon...also...it's summer so we should be fighting to get there anyway, right?! Have some fun in the sun this summer, folks, and have a great weekend! Thanks for reading!